Joe Cocker! (1969)

The exclamation point says it all.

After establishing himself as a talent with great potential with his debut album With a Little Help From My Friends, Joe Cocker moved to fulfill that potential . . . to the hilt.  On his self-titled! second album, Cocker got more help from his friends, with a little more help from a new friend - Leon Russell, the Los Angeles songwriter and session man who was working with just about everyone in the late sixties and who was enlisted as a co-producer with Denny Cordell for this record.  But Russell did more than turn a few knobs and contribute a couple of songs (tremendous as those songs are); he brought a looser, more liberated gospel feel to Cocker's music that allowed our hero to capitalize fully on his R&B strengths, and he contributed his unmistakable piano sound to anchor it.  The result was a sophomore effort that far surpassed Cocker's debut.

The steady rhythms and freewheeling guitar and piano solos that permeate Joe Cocker! give the singer plenty of room to indulge himself on the rockers, with a heavy blues take on Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and an intense interpretation of the Beatles' "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window." Cocker growls out his feelings, with alternative gentleness and menace, in a restrained manner, but the tension indicates a man ready to go over the edge . . . and he does it all with his trademark blue-eyed soul manner.  He flirts with the edge on a wonderfully messy cover of Bob Dylan's "Dear Landlord," with shouts and caterwauls that indicate a feel for Dylan's understanding of authoritative figures - so what if Cocker can't get the lyrics straight?  But he's still able to show his tender side with his respectful and thoughtful delivery of Leonard Cohen's "Bird On the Wire," backed by a forlorn organ and guitar arrangement; as with his cover of Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" from With a Little Help From My Friends, he turns the song into a hymn.  Cocker similarly brings out the essence of romance on his recording of George Harrison's "Something" (taped before the Beatles' version), immersing himself in the song while leaving room for his eager female backup singers. 

The key to Joe Cocker! is the choice of material; though Cocker could have made a very good album with a different set of songs, he, Cordell, and Russell managed to find not just a batch of great songs but a batch of great songs that belong together through Cocker's reverence for them and his emotional connection to them.  Cocker's greatest flaw as a performer going forward into the seventies and beyond has been the indulgence of his talent on songs less worthy than his efforts; he still performs with the same soul he displayed in the late sixties, but his greatest moments have been when he performs material by songwriters who were just as engaged in writing these songs as he is in singing them.  On Joe Cocker!, from "Dear Landlord" (the opening track) to his monumental R&B cover of the Lovin' Spoonful's "Darling Be Home Soon," every song, including "That's Your Business Now," written by Cocker and keyboardist Chris Stainton (Cocker's only composing credit on this record), meets that standard.

Cocker just owns "Delta Lady," written by Leon Russell for singer Rita Coolidge (who appears as a backup singer on this record).  Cocker's voice hits all the notes  with authority and roars in the chorus with equal stregnth, with his backing musicians offering up solid support; you can't imagine anyone else singing it.  Not even Leon Russell himself, who put out his own version of "Delta Lady" on his 1970 self-titled (without an exclamation point) album.  Russell was in charge of Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen band on the singer's U.S. tour in the spring of 1970 and was thought to have been in charge of Cocker himself.  But while Russell may have been a dominant force in Cocker's career at the time, Joe Cocker! shows why the man in charge is the man whose name is on the album sleeve.  

With an exclamation point.